1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to traps for crabs or lobsters and comprising a mesh of rope or other material provided on a trap frame.
2. Description of the Related Art
Crab traps in use at the present time have hollow interiors within crab trap frames, with wire meshes extending around the frame to enclose a hollow interior and with crab inlet openings in the meshes and the frames, through which crabs can crawl into the interiors of the crab frames when the crab traps are in use.
In order to prevent the crabs from leaving the interiors of the crab traps, the crab inlet openings have been shaped as conical openings spaced upwardly from the bottoms of the traps and tapering inwardly of the traps so as to make it difficult for the crabs to find their way out from the traps. Also, the crab inlet openings have been provided with one-way gates, which open inwardly to allow the crabs to enter. These one-way gates have been made of pivotably mounted pins.
However, in practice an undesirably large number of crabs, having entered the traps, are able to escape through the crab inlet openings, thereby substantially reducing the crabbers catch. The crabs escape through the one-way gates by spreading apart the pins so as to enable the crabs to squeeze between the pins.
Another problem of conventional crab traps is that they catch and retain undersized crabs, which should preferably be allowed to escape from the traps.
Also, crab traps presently in use are difficult to lift be hand, because the crabbers fingers are unable to effectively penetrate the mesh so as to engage the crab trap frames.